Friday, April 28, 2017

Fun Fact: Doug Flutie, my fav. QB of all time (except for Drew Brees), was only 5'9", yet while only playing for the CFL for 8 seasons, he tore shit up there like you wouldn't believe. He is only one of two players (last I checked) to ever pass for over 6000 yds. (yes 6000), in ANY form of "American Style" football, in any league. And he did it not once, but twice, coming close a third time.

In fact, in 8 years in the CFL, he threw for over 41,000 yards, and rushed for over 4600. He was a monster. He threw 270 passing TDs, and rushed for 66 (yes, 66) rushing TDs. That is insane, by any standards. He also, unsurprisingly, won the CFL's "Most Outstanding Player" award (basically their league MVP), 6 times, and won 3 Grey Cup championships with 2 different teams, the Calgary Stampeders and the Toronto Argonauts.

That's the entire reason he even got a second chance in the NFL, being signed by the Buffalo Bills in 1998, leading them to the playoffs and becoming the 1998 NFL Comeback Player of the Year, and a 1998 Pro Bowl selection. He had been in the NFL in the 80s, even started a bit, but was never given a fair shot because of his size. ALL he had to do to get a second chance in the NFL, was basically be THE most amazing QB in CFL history, ONE of the most amazing in football history period.

Quite frankly, Flutie could have and should have been a long-time starter for the Bills, and even a Super Bowl champion, but even with all he had accomplished, and even with him leading the Bills to back to back playoff berths in 98 and 99, it STILL wasn't enough for idiot NFL coaches, GMs and Owners, specifically the Bills' in this case, to get over the stigma of the "short QB". Instead, they wanted to go with Rob Johnson, a prototypical tall "canon arm" QB that the NFL covets, and who subsequently went on to do exactly jack shit in his NFL career. He also helped cost the red-hot Bills, whom Flutie had GOTTEN to the playoffs, by losing in the playoffs to the eventual AFC Champion Titans. Nothing is ever certain or guaranteed, but just imagine, if Flutie had been allowed to finish what he started that year, it might've been the Bills and Flutie Magic, versus the "Greatest Show on Turf" in that Super Bowl. Remember, the Rams barely beat the Titans in that game, even with all of their offensive firepower.

Doug Flutie is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best "American Style" football players in the history of the sport. He is, deservingly, enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, and the Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. But he'll never be in the NFL Hall of Fame, sadly, because he didn't do enough in his NFL career, to MERIT getting in. He was never truly given a chance, due mainly to his size and little else, to shine for long enough in the NFL, to have a notable career within it. Which is crazy, considering he's one of the best College and CFL quarterbacks of all time. And no, that's not the NFL, but let's be honest, a guy who could be THAT great in the CFL, surely could have been at LEAST very good (hint: he was with the Bills) in the NFL.

I wish he had, because he's a stand up guy, and a hell of a player. The thing Flutie had going for him, whether it was throwing that famous "Hail Mary" play for Boston College, or dominating like a football god in the CFL, beyond his obvious athleticism or skill, was heart. The dude never gave up on a play, and despite his size, often found ways to keep plays going, or make "something out of nothing". That's why pundits briefly dubbed his time with Buffalo as "Flutie Magic". But, while he sadly didn't get to have much of his OWN career in the NFL, the one legacy he CAN claim, though it certainly took time, and is STILL something of an issue to this day, was chipping away at the misconception that "short QBs can't succeed in the NFL".

Tell that to Jeff Garcia (6'1"), a former CFL QB himself, and a 4x Pro Bowler who led three different teams to the playoffs throughout his career. Or Russel Wilson (5'11"), a 3x Pro Bowler who went to back-to-back Super Bowls, winning one and barely losing the other (against two of the greatest NFL QBs of all time). Or Drew Brees (6'0"), a 10x Pro Bowler, Super Bowl MVP and Champion (against Peyton Manning), and the ONLY player in NFL history to throw for 5000+ yds. in a season more than once. In fact, he's done it 5 times now. That's no 6000 yds. in a season, but it's STILL insane, and pretty unbelievable.

Those guys likely wouldn't have ever gotten a shot to start in the NFL, if it wasn't for Flutie, albeit all too briefly, showing that a "short" QB COULD succeed in the NFL in the late 90s.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

You know, it's an interesting thought, but in today's volatile "Social Climate", you could not "get away" with making a villain like Magneto anymore. A Jewish Holocaust survivor, who goes on to basically become what he hates, promoting a "master race" and trying to subjugate people who don't fit said race. That wouldn't be "allowed" now, because it would be considered "poor taste", or any other number of stupid reasons, to show a Jew ever being a villain, let ALONE an arguably Nazi-Esque villain in certain ways.

Even IF said Jewish Villain character, was created by a writer who is a Jew himself. As if, I don't know, that was the explicit POINT of the character, was the dark, cruel irony. I've also seen it suggested recently that you "can't" make black comic criminals or super-villains anymore, because that is "enforcing negative racial stereotypes"...as if there AREN'T African American (or any other type of black person on the planet) criminals. As if some black people, like any OTHER color of person, who developed super powers or had access to high technology or magic or whatever, WOULDN'T go bad or use this power for selfish means.

It is not only absurd, but also insulting, the notion that you "can't" make this or that or the other type of character now. As if SJW types are the self-appointed police on Art and Entertainment now, and get to censor what they want to "protect" certain people's sensitive feelings, or promote what they would call a "proper social narrative". Don't get me wrong, I think Equality and people being treated decent (so long as they ACT decent), regardless of their personal details, is a good and noble ideal. But the insanity and outright fascist ideas that many of these more aggressive SJWs have, it's not just insulting, it's scary.

Me? I'm an artist. I stand with the Art, with artists' ability to express themselves, and more importantly, TELL good stories, over so-called "Social Justice", which I tend to find rarely ever involves any actual justice. And I say, Magneto was a brilliant character (before they started ruining him), BECAUSE of his dark irony and hypocrisy. That is part of his character's tragedy, is that he thinks he's the good guy, and doesn't GET just how Hitler-like he has been at times.

Monday, April 24, 2017

So
now, FINALLY, we get back around to why I started this goddamn project
in the first place. I was going to do a "Favorite Stuff of 2015" list.
And maybe I should have stuck to that. But here we are, so now I'm
finally gonna give my 2015 thoughts, better late than never.

2015
was, simply put, a year of great highs, and disappointing lows. In my
personal life, I reached some serious milestones. At some point in
January or so, I really just took off at the gym. I had been going
regularly in 2014, but not enough. But by February 2015, I weighed
myself and noticed that.....by god, I was actually LOSING weight. Not
just a few pounds, but a progressively downward (lighter) trend. That
encouraged the fuck out of me, and for the first time in my life,
perhaps even compared to childhood, I became super active. As in, I hit
the gym no less than 4 days a week, but there was a solid stretch there
when I was going 5 or 6 days a week, and a couple days in particular
when I even went twice in one day. I was a gym rat, and I loved it. I
saw real progress, even though I did get to a point where I hit a wall
and stopped losing weight for awhile, which was very frustrating, as I
wanted to keep going. But simply put, I lost easily in the ball park of
40+ pounds.

On the literary front, I also hit another milestone, perhaps more important: for
the first time in my life, I actually finished an entire novel. That
may not sound like much to people who aren't writers, but for any fellow
writers out there, you know how huge that can be. Especially if you're
like me, who had started many, but never finished ANY novels before
that. For years. I had finished many an article, essay, poem, song, even
short story. But this was the first book I ever finished, even if it's
only a "novella", really. But it's something, and that was a huge
milestone, to prove, if nothing else, to MYSELF, that I actually could
finish a book. And it's a book that, in some form or another, sooner
rather than later, I am hopeful all of you will be able to read and
share!

But on the downside though, that company I
mentioned? Well, in spite of their continued assurances that we were
doing great, growing rapidly, etc. etc. etc., and mind you, these people
talked a big game, they talked like they were going to take on the
giants, like eBay and Amazon. In spite of the bravado, the pep rallies
and the nonsense, the reality was, it wasn't very well run, and that
showed up in the books. The company wasn't making money, so the parent
company cut us off, and eventually they had a mass layoff of most of the
staff, my entire department included. Not a great day, I don't mind
saying. I didn't LOVE that job, but it was something, and I liked the
idea of being part of a growing company that was going to rise and
stick around for a bit while I continued to work on my writing. I wanted
to be able to leave on my own terms, not theirs. Unfortunately, I was
denied that, and almost literally right around the time when I was THE
healthiest and most active, and had JUST finished my novel, the layoff
came. And while I told myself not to let it derail me or get me down,
the truth is, I kinda did. I'm not happy about it, but it happens. It
shouldn't, but it does.

********************

So
with the personal shit out of the way, 2015 also brought with it some
great entertainment. Several albums came out that I liked, including one
that I started out HATING, and then wound up loving. That really
doesn't happen to me, but it did with Trivium's "Silence in the Snow".
They pulled an about face and totally changed their sound again, this
time dropping the screaming altogether as they had (almost) done with
"Crusade" years ago, but this time instead of Hetfieldian growling, they
changed to mostly trying to do very melodic singing. Which is fine, it
works for some bands, it just wasn't what I wanted from Trivium. I heard
the first one or two songs from the album, and thought "what the
FUCK?". I wasn't very happy. But for some reason, I decided to listen to
more of the album after it released, and wouldn't you know it, before
long, I went from thinking it sounded like shit, to absolutely loving
most of the songs on the damn record. I wasn't a fan of the direction
they were going initially, and I'm still not sure if that's how I want
Trivium to sound permanently. But I did wind up liking the album a lot,
and listened to the fuck out of it. I wouldn't say that it's on par with
the epicness and mythology of Shogun, but it is damn catchy, with some
good lyrics.

For my song of the year, while I am
tempted to choose the single that whose cover I put up there somewhere,
"Blind Leading the Blind" from that record, because it is a REALLY good
song. Instead, I went with an old "friend" of mine, Mark Tremonti. He is
the former guitarist for Creed, and the current guitarist for Alter
Bridge. He had put out a solo record before, a couple years back, and I
remember being excited for it, because I wanted to hear him finally
really let loose, because the guy has some serious thrash in his soul.
But that first solo record was, ultimately, very "meh" to me, with
nothing that really caught my ear. But then "Cauterize" came out in
2015, and BAM. That shit rocks. That is the sound, I think, that he
really intended to have with that first solo album, but what's important
is that it's here now. It also turns out that, while I've always known
he was a good backup singer, Tremonti is actually a rather good,
deep-voiced lead singer as well. And the song "Fall Again" I wound up
picking for Song of 2015, because it is a really really great ballad (I
really have a thing for good metal ballads, or haven't you noticed?).

Now THAT is a good movie poster.

So as for movies, part of me is tempted to say 2015 wasn't TOO hot, because while I like the movie you see above, Ant-Man,
I chose it in part because I didn't feel like anything else stood out
enough to pick. And that much is true. But the year was rare, at least,
in that I actually wanted to go see multiple movies in one month for the
first time in ages. Ant-Man, Mission Impossible 5 and Pixels
all came out within a certain stretch, and I went to see them all. I
will say that for all the undue shit that Adam Sandler gets,while
I don't love ALL of his more recent films, they do usually have a
certain heart and "feel good" quality to them that many modern films
lack. As for Pixels itself? Well I was already sold when someone
told me that Chris Columbus was directing, and that it was going to be a
movie about aliens invading earth, using the form of 80s arcade game
characters. I was already sold with that concept. The fact that I like
Sandler was just icing. And of course, because many people will hate on
Sandler's films no matter how good or bad they are, many people shit all
over it regardless. But the truth, as far as I'm concerned, is that Pixels
was his best film in years. It was great because of all the nostalgia,
as someone who grew UP in the 80s and 90s with classic arcades. But it
was also pretty funny in general, and well done. Was it a "dumb comedy"?
Yup. But it was fun, and entertaining.

As for MI5,
well, it was decent. I really hate to say this, because I really kind of
hate JJ Abrams, but beyond the original MI film, MI3, which he
directed, seems to be the strongest. MI4 was also okay, but somehow I
just wasn't totally feeling it. Plenty of high octane action....just
something lacking, that the first and third films seemed to have. MI5
was unique in that Ethan Hunt, Cruise's character, had to go rogue, so
he was the one being hunted. It was a pretty decent setup, and I'd say
it was better than MI4, but I'd hesitate to call it GREAT. And Ant-Man? Well,
it was pretty damn entertaining. It's one of the better Marvel films
that have come out, actually. Paul Rudd makes a good, likeable Scott
Lang, and while it was weird, them pulling the whole "Oh, Hank Pym and
Janet Van Dyne already were secret heroes and now Hank's old" bit was
odd, it was still a fun ride.

On a side note, you might
be asking yourself "How can he not even mention the new Star Wars, it
was amazing, right?" Well....let's just say that I didn't think it was
even remotely amazing...and leave it at that for now. I wanted to like
it, but I came away really not, for various reasons.

So adorable it hurts a bit.

So gaming. Some games came out in 2015, like the indie title The Adventures of Pip, and the Wii U version of Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures. But on the retail side of things, there wasn't much there for me. Splatoon and Mario Maker
seem neat, but neither are really my cup of tea. And while Yoshi is a
great little game, one that I was certainly looking forward to, I have
to say that it suffers the unfortunate distinction of NOT being Zelda.
What I mean by that is, originally, Nintendo stated that the new,
hopefully epic (and GOOD) Wii U Zelda, was going to release in 2015.
Then they later said "oops, our bad guys, just kidding", and delayed it
to 2016. And what sucks even worse than that? It was supposed to be out
in 2016, but they've delayed it AGAIN, to 2017, AND they're pushing it
to their next console. Talk about a crass "fuck you" to people who have
been waiting years for a native Wii U Zelda title, like yours truly. So
two years running, Zelda most likely, barring some unforeseen dumbass
gimmick that ruined the whole thing, "Zelda U" might well have been my
Game of the Year pick (2015, then 2016). But nope. Thanks Nintendo.

So poor Yoshi gets an asterisk next to his title, because while I DO really like Yoshi's Wooly World,
it's not Zelda. And I had been REALLY looking forward to Zelda last
year. And this year. Too bad, eh? I'm a little bitter about it, so sue
me. Yoshi itself, is another game made by Good-Feel, and they re-used
the yarn theme from their Kirby game, but this time, they took it a step
further, with "2.5D" levels, where the stages and characters are all
made from 3D yarn and material structures instead, still digitized, and
mapped over polygons. Pretty complex, and a neat visual appeal. While
their Kirby game went for a somewhat new approach, gameplay-wise, with
Yoshi Good-Feel stuck to the basics, as you eat up enemies with your
tongue, except now they turn into yarn balls instead of eggs. So it
basically plays like Yoshi's Island, minus the annoying crying baby, which is always a plus.

2014
was a key year for me, in some ways, mainly because I started a new job
at a fairly new online company, that was supposed to get huge, but
then didn't (more on that later). I got a new gym membership for the
first time in years, which didn't bear immediate fruit, but did later on
(more on that later also). It was also a better year for entertainment,
I'd say. Well, at least two thirds of the equation I've been shilling
here so far. On the gaming front, 2014, for me, was The Year of the
Indie Games. Two in particular. One being Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, which came out late in the year, and the other, as seen above, being Shovel Knight. Now, ironically, Shantae is developed by a studio called WayForward, and Shovel Knight,
was actually founded by several former developers from WayForward. It
was one of the first BIG game projects to get Kickstarter funded, one of
the first of those to gain major attention as well. I was there for the
whole ride, supporting the KS fund, hanging out with the crew as they
did live-streams with the fans, getting the updates, the whole shebang.
And when it finally released in June 2014, it was a godsend. They
developed it specifically to be like old 8-bit NES games, and the design
itself borrows from many classics, such as Duck Tales, Mega Man, etc.
The game is chock full of great humor, solid gameplay mechanics, and
rockin' 8-bit tunes. They even got game music composer Manami Matsumae,
who did the soundtrack for the first Mega Man, to do a bit of music for
the game, including the main theme.

All in all, Shovel Knight
is brilliant. It certainly has it's "NES hard" moments, and they pissed
me off plenty, let me tell you. But it's also fun as hell, with some
very clever ideas and designs. And the game is technically still going,
as during the KS fund, against the typical fan-fleecing practices of the
modern era, the developers committed to giving people who bought the
game DLC content for free. They already delievered on that with an
update called Plague of Shadows, in which you play as one of the
boss knights, Plague Knight, and while it still uses the same basic
levels, it's a whole new campaign with new story, mechanics, etc. And
they originally committed to doing a total of THREE such playable-boss
expansions, that the fans voted to choose, so we've still got two more
coming. That's a lot of bang for your buck, for a game that was also not
expensively priced to begin with. Even if you're only "casually" into
games, I would suggest giving Shovel Knight a look.

Another good poster, simple, yet subtle.

As for movies, 2014 was an unusual step up. As in there were
multiple movies I actually wanted to bother to spend money to go see in
theaters. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, in particular,
stands out as a movie that I honestly feel, so far, may be the
altogether strongest of the entire Marvel lot. It wasn't perfect, but I
think it had nice pacing, and hit enough of the right notes. A movie I
rented, was the Tom Cruise film Edge of Tomorrow, which while not amazing, did have a novel "time loop" theme, and was pretty well executed. Another that I saw on Netflix, was Earth to Echo, which many compared to Super 8,
another "kids having an adventure dealing with an alien" type
film...but honestly in some ways it's kind of better. Perhaps "better"
is a strong word, but it's definitely on par, even though I think it
flew under the radar a bit. A movie that I did enjoy (though I don't
love that they're going to, naturally, whore it into a whole franchise
now), was The Lego Movie. The did such a good job with the look
and "feel" of the Legos, I actually wondered if it was stop-motion, and
not CGI (it's CGI). Guardians of the Galaxy, while I'm sad the original Guardians team is being ignored, was also a well done, funny film.

They
also made a new American "Godzilla" film, which I did and still do have
mixed feelings about. It came out on the 60th anniversary of the
original Godzilla, and I had wanted Toho themselves to make a new movie,
which they didn't. Toho IS making a new movie now....but honestly, I'm
not super excited for it, because the new design doesn't look great at
all, which makes me sad. But as for the 2014 American "Zilla"? Well,
many compare it to the 1998 "Godzilla" film, the one with Matthew
Broderick, featuring a giant irradiated iguana. Many people state that
it's great compared to THAT film, and I guess in some ways, they're
right. It certainly is more "Godzilla-like" than that film was. Thing
is, that film wasn't bad...it was a big dumb summer blockbuster type
film....I just hated that they tried to pass it off as "Godzilla". This
film, on the other hand, really IS trying to BE "Godzilla"....but it
just kind of isn't. Like, for one thing, I never loved the big, clunky
look they gave him. And for another, as I've pointed out in previous
articles, when it comes to daikaiju films, there is just something that
suit actors bring to the screen, an organic life, that CGI can't mimic.
Del Toro's Pacific Rim had the same problem. But beyond effects,
the movie itself focused too much on one soldier character trying to get
home, and the giant bug things that "Godzilla" had to fight, were kind
of dumb. It wasn't a BAD film...it was just kind of dull and
uninspiring. I feel like their heart was in the right place, and part of
me is glad it made a lot of money, so that Godzilla gets a bigger
presence again. But ultimately, I didn't love the film, and wish that
someone would have just made more of a TRUE Godzilla film. I wonder if
Hollywood ever could?

But the movie I gave the Film of 2014 to, was by one of my favorite directors, Wes Anderson. The Grand Budapest Hotel
just might be my favorite Anderson film. It has a bit of everything,
and it was like your typical Anderson quirk, but turned up to 11, and
wrapped around somewhat of an adventure story. Wes has always been great
at characters and narrative, and that strength was on full display in
this. The movie bleeds heart, and charm, and wit, but not in a painful,
forced way. There is an organic, earnest quality to Anderson's films, he
definitely has his own unique style, and in a Hollywood landscape with
SO much lifeless, generic crap produced in this modern era, his films
don't really come off as "Hollywood". I don't love every single one of
his films, but I've liked most of them, and they're a breath of fresh
air.

Much better album art.

Now, it's fair to
say that Machine Head's "Unto the Locust" album was GOOD. But their 2014
follow-up, "Bloodstone & Diamonds", is pretty great. 2014 in
general was a better year for music, with great albums by two of my
favorite bands, Machine Head and Opeth, coming out. I don't love EVERY
song on Bloodstone, but it has some true gems, including "Now We Die"
and "Sail Into the Black". In fact I had the lyrics up on my crew's
blackboard for "Sail Into the Black" for months, and I'm not sure anyone
noticed. Opeth's "Pale Communion" was good enough on it's own, that I
seriously considered it for album of the year as well. The previous
album, "Heritage", continued the progressive rock trend they had been
on, this time completely dropping all death metal growling 100%, but it
was, for me anyway, almost TOO prog rock, it didn't have a lock of
hooks, and there wasn't any one song that really stayed with me. They
correct that with Communion, as it has that same prog, eclectic sound,
but is more focused, has the hooks, and many of these songs really stick
with you. The song I picked for Song of 2014, in fact, is one of the
best they've ever done, called "Faith in Others", which has a wonderful
strings accompaniment.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

I
wouldn't go so far as to say that 2013 was another "dead year". And
yet, I'm hard pressed to say it was all that great either. Right at the
ass end of the year, I did finally manage to move away from a crappy
college neighborhood I'd stuck myself in for the better part of a
decade. Being a writer, something I've wanted badly for a very long
time, is to live somewhere where, on a daily basis, I can get a regular
dose of peace and quiet. Sadly, while I did get to a neighborhood not
rife with loud bass pounding my walls sometimes from parties happening a
block or more away (yes, really), in a way I kind of traded one set of
noise in for another. Meaning I made the sorry choice to move into a
downstairs apartment, and have regretted it since. That's enough about
that, really, but let's just say I still yearn to, and fully intend to
someday actually attain a QUIET home. Someday.

The
Wii U was out in Fall 2012. And I was initially happy with the console,
because while the "Gamepad" controller was a bit bulky and took a
little getting used to, it is in essence a regular controller, that just
happens to have a huge touch screen. The system still can use the
Wiimote and other Wii accessories, in fact it is 100% backwards
compatible with all Wii games, which is a nice touch in an era when that
is not really longer the case with other systems. But it became
obviously early into 2013, that something was not quite right in
paradise. Big games were getting delayed, alleged exclusives were being
delayed AND made multi-platform. There were multiple months in 2013 when
zero retail Wii U games released at all. That's what we in the gaming
business call a "drought". And as a fan, and owner of a new system that I
rushed out to own? It sucked. I specifically got a Wii U, personally,
for one major game, and that was Pikmin 3. It was announced as in
development for Wii prior, but then was moved, and was originally
supposed to release fairly early on in the system's life. It got delayed
til August 2013, and when I finally got it, I was, sadly, very
underwhelmed. They took a few of the most key elements of Pikmin
gameplay that had made me love the first two games so much, namely the
ability to independently control the Pikmin with the second stick, and
camera zoom (and even MULTIPLE save files) away, for no good reason.
They also switched to new characters, and a focus on collecting fruit,
but zero treasure. The treasure hunting alone had been a big part of the
fun of Pikmin, because you always wondered what little trinket you were
going to find next. So the game that had been my most anticipated for
Wii U, was a big let down. Not a BAD game...but it's not really Pikmin,
not the complete experience.

So the game I
chose for my Game of 2013, IS a pretty good game, even if it wasn't the
big epic HD Mario game that everyone wanted (and is still waiting for). Super Mario 3D World is a follow up to the Nintendo 3DS title Super Mario 3D Land,
which was the first fully 3D Mario game on a portable system. It had
but in comparison to that game's bite-sized levels, this game features
much bigger stages, arguably better overall design, and as you can see
in that picture up there aways, for the first time since Super Mario Bros. 2 (or if you want to be technical, since it's remake Super Mario Advance),
you could play that classic 80s line up of Mario, Luigi, Toad, and
Princess Toadstool (Peach). They also, as has been their habit over the
last several games, added new a new "suit" power up, this time being Cat
Mario, which in addition to being adorable, allows you to climb walls
(somewhat), and claw enemies to death. The thing is, not only is 3D
World not the big, sprawling epic HD Mario many (myself included)
dreamed of, but they also missed a key opportunity with it, I feel. The
game already has SEVERAL subtle hints and traces of Mario 2, so why not
just go full bore? Why not, instead of having another game where you
have to fight Bowser, and instead of sending the heroes to some generic
"fairy land", why NOT just have a return to Subcon, and have the Mario 2
bosses like Mouser, Tricyde, Birdo and Wart return? Why NOT have Shy
Guys and Sniffits and Phantos all over the place? That would have made
the game far more unique and memorable. But as it is, it IS a fun game,
with decent 4 player co-op play, and the ability to play those four
characters (including Peach being able to float, ala Mario 2).

Typical "evil looking" modern metal album cover.

2013 was another fairly dry
year for music, but it did feature an album by a band that I had thus
far only partially gotten into, the UK thrash metal band Evile. They are
not an old 80s relic, but rather a young band trying to recreate that
style, and while their early work sounds more like the band Slayer (whom
I'm not terribly fond of), their last two albums, including this one,
really see their sound progress and get richer. "Skull" is definite
evidence of that, and I'd like to see them continue going in that
direction. Most of the songs are still pretty "balls to the wall"
thrash, but there is one brooding "ballad" piece (that in true thrash
fashion gets heavy near the end), called "Tomb", that is lyrically super
depressing, but also very poignant, and a very good song. If you're
into metal at all, I'd suggest checking them out.

So there.

Another on the list of "movies I didn't actually watch in theater but rented later and liked", Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
was another nice surprise. It's directed by Stiller also, which makes
it the third film he's directed that I liked (the other two being Cable Guy and Tropic Thunder).
The movie is more of a serious film, though it does have it's comedic
moments. And it presents, while a bit ridiculous, something I myself
have been all too familiar with my entire life: living a rather
unspectacular life, and wanting something more, and having fantastic
daydreams as a means of escape. Walter Mitty is a simple guy who works
as a photo editor for Life magazine, which is sadly defunct, and finds
there is a key photo missing that his boss wants for the cover of their
last ever issue. So he has to go on an impromptu adventure to find it,
and in doing so, goes on a journey the likes of which he has only ever
imagined, which truly chances his life, and him as a person. It's really
strong, compelling, at times even profound stuff. In some ways, it's
Stiller's best work, both as an actor and director.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Year: 2012
Movie: The Secret World of Arrietty
Game: Skyrim (PS3 version)*
Album: Cascadia by Third Seven*
Song: Destination Now by Third Seven*

I'm
just going to start out by saying that especially after looking back at
it, I think it's safe to say that, especially entertainment-wise, 2012
was a fairly dead year for me. In my private life, I finally managed to
fully conquer the unrighteous and horrendous demon known as "Forced
General Education", as I put math I should have never been required to
take for an English degree behind me, and finally earned a few college
degrees, even if they aren't worth much. My struggles with math, which,
again, I should have never been required to take, were epic, even though
I was concurrently in the Honors Program and regularly pulling off As
and Bs in classes that actually interested me, I struggled in math and a
couple math-heavy science classes. None of which applied to my degree.
But I digress. That was one minor accomplishment in my life worth
noting, finally "graduating" college. I had intended to move on to
another university in pursuit of a Humanities/Arts and possibly even
Film degree, but got stopped short by financial aid issues that aren't
worth going into. Regardless, while having college degrees to my name is
neat, it doesn't help me attain what has been my ultimate goal
(career-wise) since my late teens: to make a living as a writer. A goal
I'm still working towards, and shall continue to do so.
On
the movie front, it was basically a few lone oasis' in a vast dessert.
Which is unsurprising as that is obviously the direction my views on
modern blockbuster films has been heading in this whole time. Getting
into the negative at this point would be redundant, but I will mention
two films: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, and The Hobbit (part 1).
With Ghost Rider, the original Nick Cage film was, while not perfect,
enjoyable, and I had been looking forward to what they might do with a
sequel. As it turned out? Wish they hadn't bothered. It was another case
of different writer/director, and basically just taking the whole thing
to pot. It was legitimately a bad film, which almost entirely ignored
the fact that the first film had even happened, and I was really let
down. But not nearly as much as I was with Peter Jackson's The Hobbit. To save myself bitching about in more in subsequent years, I will just say that while I really enjoyed his Lord of the Rings films at the time, andFellowship
was my "favorite movie" for a few years there, even looking back on
those, I wish they had stuck more to the books, and been done
differently in certain key ways. But they're still GREAT compared to
what he did with The Hobbit. I won't allow myself to bog this
down with another huge rant, but I will just say that I truly will
always wish that Guillermo Del Toro had stayed on as director, I feel he
almost would HAVE to have done a better job. He only wanted to make ONE
movie based on the Hobbit (which was ONE book), and that is precisely
what should have been done. Instead, Peter Jackson let Hollywood suits
talk him into making ONE book into a fucking trilogy. And the man who I
had once felt had been FAIRLY faithful to Middle Earth, a place that had
been near and dear to my heart since childhood, went and made films
that were, I shit you not, almost 50% completely made up bullshit. The
opening like 20 minutes of this first Hobbit film? Pretty solid. The
rest of the trilogy? Gets worse as you go. I genuinely hope that someone
else comes along years from now and does ONE good Hobbit film. I really
do, because it deserves better. For now, the 1977 cartoon is THE way to
go, if you want a good (and faithful) adaptation.

The Lorax
was okay, but I feel that these CGI Dr. Seuss films are sometimes
missing the beat a little bit. There was the Wes Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom, which was in his typical quirky style, and was quite enjoyable. The Avengers
also surprised me, and stands out as the only thing Joss Whedon has
ever done that I actually like. But the movie that earned my Movie of
2012 praise, and not merely because nothing else really stood out, was
Studio Ghibli's Secret World of Arrietty. Based on the Borrowers
novels, while not directed by the master Hayao Miyazaki himself, it was
still pure Ghibli, and a very, good film that I would recommend to
anyone.

Game of the Year?

So, I need to tell a quick story to
explain this one. I didn't play it when it released in 2011, even though
I own a PS3. In fact I had never previously played any of the Elder Scrolls games, not being a big PC gamer, and never being terribly interested in the previous game Oblivion.
When this game came out, I really didn't get the hype, and as is
sometimes the case with me, was actually rather annoyed by the hype
surrounding it. Oblivion had gotten some attention, but the sheer
level of buzz and craze surrounding THIS game was insane, and I just
didn't get it. Then came the gaming desert of 2012, wherein, literally,
almost nothing that I really wanted to play came out, happened. So at
some point around the early summer of 2012, after I had finally
conquered "Gen Ed" and "graduated", I just randomly decided to ask my
friend Jay if I could borrow his copy, since he had also given the game
praise, and wasn't playing it at the moment. Now, while I didn't (and
don't) love the forced cinematic opening nonsense you have to go
through, once I really started the game, I found myself getting into it.
And getting into it led, quite frankly, into a veritable "lost week" in
that early summer, wherein I stayed up all night playing Skyrim for hours, slept for awhile, got back up and did it again, for the better part of a week.

So
I got into it. That isn't to say I LOVE the game, and I WILL state that
the game deserves an asterisk as my Game of 2012, because nothing else
really deserved the praise. I DID go out of my way to buy a Wii U on
launch day (which saving up for that in itself was an adventure), and I
DID like New Super Bros. U. But I chose this because I poured
hours into playing this fucking game, for good AND ill, so based just on
how much time I sank into/wasted on it, I felt it deserved the title.
The game is hardly perfect, in fact it's VERY flawed. I didn't love the
stupid civil war storyline, nor did I love more or less being forced to
choose a side if you want to get anywhere in it. And the PS3 version is
glitchy as hell, with a lot of bugs, a few of which made certain
missions unbeatable. And overall I really kept constantly feeling like
"okay, why can't I do THIS?", over and over as I played the game. What I
came away from the experience with, was a feeling that while Bethesda
is NOT a terribly good developer (noone that puts out that buggy a
product deserves to be called good), what they crafted with Skyrim
was a fairly organic feeling, "living" type of game world, and THAT was
why I played it for hours. Not for the often overly long, VERY much the
same thing over and over dungeons. Nor for the riveting plot about
racist Nords, Asshole Elves, and a World Eating Dragon. But the most fun
I had playing Skyrim, was forgetting the game I was supposed to
be playing, and just getting lost in the game WORLD, running around,
exploring, filling out the map, finding hidden areas, etc. You know, the
same basic shit I love about Zelda games. I was left with a feeling
that, if they ever finally make an Elder Scrolls 6 for a system I own, that if they could take what they did for Skyrim, but do it a lot BETTER, that is a game I would like to play.

Billy Mickelson

2012 was also a dead year for music. So
much so that it isn't even worth going into whatever came out that I
didn't like. So I will just instead mention that by pure accidental
happenstance, the previous December I had been in an "Intro to Jazz"
class, and was supposed to be attending a live Jazz show to write a
paper on. And instead, because of a mix-up with signs and days and
whatnot, I accidentally went to this little coffee shop type place to
see "Third Seven" instead, which is basically a one-man act (though he
sometimes has an accompanying musician or two). The one man band is
Billy Mickelson, pictured above. He is from Bend, Oregon (I myself being
born in Portland), and he is, I don't mind saying, a fairly masterful
cello player. The cello also happens to be my favorite classical
instrument, and what he does with it is rather remarkable. Especially
live, he is literally a one man band, as what he does is he uses
looping/mixer peddles, to record and loop music that he plays live, on
the fly. So he'll do a simple beat on the body of the cello, for
example, and then loop that, then strum a simple tune, loop that, and
THEN play mournful cello strains OVER his own loops, and sing. It's very
unique, and I was quite taken with his work right way. I got an mix cd
of his older music from him that night, and later downloaded (he offers
it for free) his 2012 album "Cascadia". I've seen him once when he came
back to town since, and though it's been awhile, I eagerly await his
next stop. He offers his music for free (though he also sells cds) on his website.

*You can ALSO check out some simple "music videos" I made for several of his songs last year, over on the Retro Revelations Youtube Channel:

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Year: 2011
Movie: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2
Game: Kirby's Return to Dreamland
Album: Unto the Locust by Machine Head
Song: Darkness Within by Machine Head
2011 wasn't a great year for movies. A Green Hornet film came out, a project long in the making, that I feel would have been awesome if it had starred Stephen Chow of Kung Fu Soccer
fame, as it was originally supposed to. At one point it was even linked
to Jet Li. But the movie that finally did come out, while not terrible,
starred Seth Rogen, and some Korean pop star, and honestly it just kind
of came off like a Seth Rogen film. Didn't really live up to the spirit
of the Green Hornet. Sticking with the Green theme, Green Lantern
was also pretty bad. Which is too bad, because the character and
concept are pure gold, but they miscast Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan
(really miscast), and the film in general just wasn't very good, with a
terrible villain. Spielberg made a Tin Tin film, which I appreciate, but
I felt the film itself was too....I don't know...busy. I just didn't
like it as much as I had hoped I might. There was also a "prequel" made
to John Carpenter's The Thing, which I feel is one of the best
horror movies ever made. The "prequel"? Was okay, but honestly, while I
really appreciate the attention to detail they put into trying to
recreate what might have happened in the Norwegian camp discovered in
the original film, this movie just proves that the modern reliance on
CGI and jump scares, is no substitute for the genuine tension and
creepiness that classic horror movies relied on. Also, as a minor
personal gripe, they didn't bother to give it a subtitle of any sort,
just calling it The Thing again, which is both lazy and confusing to audiences.

There were some surprising films that I didn't see in theaters, but later rented, like Super 8 and The Adjustment Bureau.
With Super specifically, it's an oddity, as I honestly can't stand most
of JJ Abrams work (especially considering the fact that personally, I
feel he helped ruin Star Wars a bit, nuff said). But Adjustment was
actually very good, out of the various "surreal" films that came out
around this same time-frame, I feel it was the best. Another I didn't
see in theaters, but later rented, also ironically starring Matt Damon,
is We Bought a Zoo, a drama about a family that buys an abandoned
zoo, and I'll tell ya, there were all kinds of feels in that movie. I'd
highly recommend both. I'd also recommend Tower Heist, starring Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick and Eddie Murphy, a very funny and well done "heist", a dark comedy really.

On the superhero front, Thor
was a mixed bag of both good and bad. The movie in general, and the
casting of Loki and Thor (even Odin) were good. But the cinematic Marvel
insistence (up until now) of NOT having anything truly mystical or
magical in their movies, even though the Marvel Universe is RIFE with
it, is outright idiotic. And because of that, they changed what is
supposed to be Norse Gods (even in the comics), to a Hollywood
multicultural array of "aliens"....even though their "planet" is
literally still a flat-world island floating in the sky/space. Like I
said, the movie itself is okay, but those little details are important,
and their reasons for changing them are absurd. 2011 also saw the
release of Captain America, starring Chris Evans who had already previously played The Human Torch in the non-shared-universe (and shitty) Fantastic Four films. It was actually really good, a nice 1940s period piece, very well done, with Evans being a very good Steve Rogers.

But
of course the movie that gets my Movie of 2011 pick, is Harry Potter 7
(part 2). I honestly don't really like or agree with this new Hollywood
trend of splitting adaptations of ONE book up into multiple parts, and
while I can see the logic, I suppose, of "fitting more of the book into
the film", the real reason they do it is to get twice as many millions
in $$$ at the box office. I don't know that HP7 needed two films, even
though I've admittedly still never read the books (plan to). But while
it was a good movie, I feel Deathly HallowsPt. 1
needlessly dragged in places, where as Pt. 2 feels like a rush to the
finish line. In other words, the two films are uneven. I think if they
had made one film, if the fucker wound up being 3 long hours, that they
could have easily still fit in all of the key points of the story, and
cut the fat of Pt. 1 especially, to make one balanced, complete film.
But regardless, DH Pt. 2 is a great end to the film series, a series
that it unusually accurate to the books (from what I've been told),
which had great casting, mostly good film choices, little deviation from
the source material, etc.

There's those angry NA Kirby eyes.

There honestly wasn't much that I
played, gaming wise, at least new games, in 2011. The two biggest
releases for me were on Wii, and they were Zelda and Kirby. First I'll
talk about The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. On it's face, it's
a decent game, and there were elements of it I liked that I wouldn't
mind them bringing back in future games. Such as the upgradable items, a
nice touch that wasn't ever implemented quite this way in previous
Zelda titles. The graphics, while an odd pastel palette, were nice to
look at, a more cartoony fare than Twilight Princess had been.
And the game having a more personal relationship between Link and Zelda
(basically childhood best friends), was neat. The negatives of the game,
however, while I would never call it a BAD game, were fairly strong.
For one thing, the game is big on repetition in a way that few other
Zelda games are. There are only four major areas to the game, a sky
world "hub", and three earthbound "overworld" areas. You go to these
three areas, basically, over and over. And while there are a couple
unique bosses thrown in, you literally fight the two main villains,
Girahim and Demise, three+ times each, getting harder and more annoying
each time. On the one hand, yes, it was a novel approach. But on the
other hand, I don't prefer it.

However, all of that
could have been forgiven, if the game had PLAYED better. Eiji Aonuma,
the man who has been in charge of the series basically since Ocarina of Time,
insisted (with some strong nudging I'd imagine from Shigeru Miyamoto),
in heavily implementing the Wiimote and the "Motion Plus" attachment
they made for it, in the gameplay. And for the swordplay itself, I was
fine with that notion. But the problem is, they went fucking overboard
with it, applying motion controls to EVERYTHING in the game. Even
navigating simple menu screens, or aiming arrows, or flying, or
swimming...ALL things that would have controlled 100% better using the
analog stick or the IR pointer function of the Wiimote. And that
over-use of motion controls almost ruined the game for me. I still had a
relatively good time playing it, and had stretches where I enjoyed
myself. But those controls were also often very cumbersome, and even at
times quite annoying, and absolutely detracted from the overall
experience. I think even with it's repetitious nature and other flaws, Skyward Sword
would have been 100% better a game if it had only used motion controls
for Link's swordplay, or even just used traditional "analog and button"
controls.

My Game of 2011, goes to Kirby though. Seeing as how Kirby's Adventure is one of my Top Ten Favorite Games Ever,
the Kirby series in general has always been one of my favorites over
the years. They often deviate and do little side games, which is fine,
and as explained I even liked little experiments like Epic Yarn. But while I prefer 2D sprite graphics to 3D polygons, at least for 2D styled games, as the name Return to Dreamland implies,
this game was a nice return to form. What it REALLY was, in all blunt
honesty, was the long-awaited culmination of a "2.5D" Kirby project that
had been in development YEARS before for the Gamecube, but sadly never
came out. I wish it had, but this game was still a lot of fun, and
traditional Kirby fare, with the inclusion of limited-time "super
powers" you could get, along with your normal powers.

Ugly album art, good album.

As for music....well, I honestly don't
remember much of what music may or may not have come out in 2011. Which
of course isn't a good sign. Granted, I am not really into a lot of
modern music, especially various forms of pop music, but still, even of
the stuff I DO like, there wasn't much. Trivium put out their follow up
to "Shogun", called "In Waves", but while it featured two or three
decent songs, it was honestly a major letdown to me, comparatively. But
the one album that did come out in 2011 that I did really like, was
"Unto the Locust" by Machine Head. It was a decent follow up to the
album that got me into them, "The Blackening", and while it was on the
shorter side (only seven tracks), it still featured some strong music.
Most especially, the song that is also my pick for Song of 2011, and one
of the best songs I've ever heard period, a ballad (of sorts) called
"Darkness Within". Not only is it beautiful, but the lyrical theme of
being "saved" from the pain of the harsh world around us by art, like
music, really struck a chord in me.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Year: 2010
Movie: The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader*
Game: Cave Story - Nintendo Wii version
Album: Relentless Retribution by Death Angel
Song: Claws in so Deep by Death Angel

Starting
on a different note, 2010 was certainly a better year for music then
2009 had been. For one thing, one of my favorite bands, Sevendust, had
previously seen the return of original guitarist Clint Lowery, and the
first new album with that lineup was released, called "Cold Day
Memory". It had many strong songs, such as "Splinter", "Forever", and
"Nowhere". While it didn't have, to me, the sheer number of songs that
really hook you, as the previous album, 2008's "Chapter VII: Hope &
Sorrow", it was still a strong album. And while I liked his replacement,
Sonny Mayo, it was nice to have Clint back, because he honestly never
should have left. 2010 also saw the release of Powerglove's next opus,
dubbed "Saturday Morning Apocalypse", this time focusing on mostly old
cartoon show themes, instead of video game metal covers. The Batman song
on there is especially good.

But my vote for Album of
2010, and subsequently Song of 2010, comes from the Bay Area thrash
metal legends Death Angel. This band had a unique and also tragic
history, starting out as (so far as I'm aware) the only all-Asian
American metal band, as the members were all Filipino. They got their
break and their first album recorded back in the mid-80s with the help
of fellow half-Filipino Kirk Hammet, lead guitarist for Metallica. They
rose to break into a taste of mainstream success with their third album,
1990's "Act III", only to nearly lose their drummer to a bus accident.
The band more or less broke up after that, and didn't get back together
until the early 2000s, under their mostly original line-up. That lineup
put out two great albums, 2004's "The Art of Dying" and 2008's "Killing
Season", after which the original bassist and drummer decided they had
had enough of life back on the road or whatever, and quit the band. It
was after this, when the band was joined by a couple of journeyman
musicians (the band no longer being all Filipino), that they recorded
2010's "Relentless Retribution", and while it made me sad that the
original members left again after making such a triumphant return, this
new album was undeniably the band's strongest work yet since returning.

I
wouldn't necessarily say that it was better BECAUSE of the new guys,
but the band obviously had a fire lit under it during the writing and
recording for this record, because it comes through in pretty much every
song. There are many great cuts off this album to choose from, and
honestly I could have chosen a song from Sevendust's album as well, but
ultimately THE Song of 2010 for me was "Claws in so Deep", a very
visceral yet haunting song, speaking very vaguely and metaphorically
about society, the rich, politicians, etc....people with their claws
deep into us, The People, manipulating us and living off of us, like
parasites. Basically strong themes for the album in general, with even
the album art displaying the concept of "wolves among us". It's just a
really kick ass song, and it has a really nice acoustic outro by the
Mexican duo Rodrigo y Gabriela.

One of my favorites of the Narnia series, though not my TOP favorite.

2010 for movies was still not a great
year, as that downward trend was still continuing. It saw what I felt
was yet another sub-par adaptation from Tim Burton in the form of his Alice in Wonderland
movie. I must note, that I DO like several Burton films, but they are
pretty much exclusively his more original ideas, most notably Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Ed Wood.
His adaptations, however, not a huge fan. The Batman films are
okay.....but the only Batman committed to film that has ever really
"gotten it right", was the 90s animated series. 2010 also saw yet
another of my beloved classics needlessly remade into a boring,
stumbling CGI-fest, this time Ray Harryhausen'sClash of the Titans.
The 1981 film is rightly regarded as a classic, and I personally
consider it Ray's masterpiece, his final opus before he decided to sadly
call it quits. The remake, beyond just the magic of that old
stop-motion effects work begin replaced be fairly lifeless CGI, also
just kind of has fairly lifeless writing and acting as well.

2010 ALSO saw the live action adaptation of The Last Airbender, based off of the Avatar
show, that I happen to really love, and it was even directed by a
director whose work I really liked up until his last few films in M.
Night Shyamalan. But the truth is he is not a big budget, epic action
film kind of director, and it really showed. He is better suited for
smaller, quirky, character driven stories, that's his forte. And in the
process of trying to make an Airbender movie, instead of being the
beginning of an awesome (though horribly unnecessary) live action film
trilogy....it was a fairly humorless and wooden version of a cartoon
show that had been vibrant and full of life.

But as for movies I DID like, well of course there was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 1, which I could have chosen because it was very good, but I decided to give it to something else. Toy Story 3
came out, which I did not see in theaters, but later rented. However,
though wanting to like it, much like part 2, which I can't honestly
remember what it was about half the time, I just really wasn't feeling
the third film. It was solid, and I got what they were going for, but I
guess I really only liked the first Toy Story film. In the realm of CGI cartoons though, Despicable Me
was a surprise hit, and though it didn't need the obligatory sequels
and spinoffs that would follow, the original film was actually rather
charming. But the movie I did obviously pick as Film of 2010, was the
third in the Narnia series (of films that is), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
I originally experienced these stories (aside from the books) in the
BBC adaptations of them, which were low budget but fun, and Dawn Treader
was always neat. Though I was (and sadly still am) waiting for my
favorite entry, The Silver Chair. Voyage was a good movie though,
and even though they did change a couple of plot points around, it was
strong enough to earn Film of the Years honors.

A major surprise, but SUCH a good game.

2010 had some decent games, but I wouldn't exactly call it a big year for gaming for me. Super Mario Galaxy 2
came out, but while it was a decent game, the first was far more fresh
and to me more fun. The direct sequel, to me, felt kind of unnecessary.
Nintendo also put out a sequel to an obscure N64 game that we never got,
called Sin & Punishment, this one being subtitled Star Successor.
It's a decent on-rails shooter type of game, and with the Wiimote
aiming, it played substantially better than the N64 game. Sega also put
out their own Mario Kart type game, called Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (really long title), which was a pretty fun game featuring all sorts of characters from Sega's history. The game Metroid: Other M
was a significant disappointment to me (and a lot of people), mainly
because the team who made it, "Team Ninja" (responsible for the 3D Ninja Gaiden
games), just isn't very good at things like in-game physics, cameras,
platforming or...much of anything. And the plot was fairly absurd, and
the hero Samus Aran was very un-Samus-like.

A great game that was a very close runner-up for Game of 2010, was Kirby's Epic Yarn, made by the company Good-Feel, who had previously done a really excellent hand-drawn 2D Wario Land
game on Wii in 2008. With their crack at the Kirby franchise, usually
made by Hal Laboratories, they went in a unique direction wherein the
graphics of the game are entirely comprised of digitized yarn and other
materials. Kirby and all the other characters and enemies in the game,
specifically, are made of strings of yarn, basically character outlines,
to give it a look quite unlike anything that had come before. And while
it didn't have the traditional "suck, spit, gain enemy powers" Kirby
mechanics, it was still a very good 2D platformer, with a focus on
exploration and collection, rather than the typical frantic-ness of most
platformers. It was a game that I could really just kind of chill out
and play, which is rare for a side-scroller, and I liked that.

But the game that DID win my Game of 2010, was one Cave Story.
This brilliant indie game had been originally been released for free on
home computers in 2004, developed all by one independent Japanese
developer, Daisuke Amaya, aka "Pixel". He made the entire game over the
course of five years, all in his spare time, and that means everything:
the graphics, programming, design, music, everything. Six years later,
it as ported to the Nintendo Wii (originally as a Wiiware exclusive),
with slightly updated sound and visuals (though you could choose to have
the originals). And let me tell you, I don't heap this kind of praise
on most things, but I don't mind making the statement that Cave Story
is, hands down, one of the best games ever made. By anyone, but it's
especially impressive that ONE dude made this brilliant 8-bit/16-bit
style masterpiece. The game itself plays out a bit like a
"Metroid-vania" type game, in other words a fairly open, explorable 2D
world with elements like backtracking. It's essentially a 2D shooter
with platforming elements, and it's quite simply one of the funnest
games I've ever played. I had not experienced it til it came to Wii, and
I was totally engrossed my entire first playthrough. If you've never
played Cave Story, do yourself a huge favor and try it.